Madison County Airport

One of America's most active warbird restoration shops, located at Grimes Field in Urbana, OH. The signature project is the B-17 Flying Fortress "Champaign Lady" — a years-long restoration to flying status. Visitors can watch the work in progress in the open hangar. The museum also has a B-25 Mitchell, several T-6 Texans, and other aircraft. Open weekly with active volunteer mechanics happy to talk shop. A must-visit for warbird fans.

You're landing at Ohio State's own airport. Don Scott Field has been the university's airfield since 1943 — named for a two-time All-American quarterback who became a WWII pilot and died in training — and aviation at Ohio State reaches back to 1917, when cadets first flew from what is now the heart of campus. Southeast of the field sits the campus and Ohio Stadium, "the Horseshoe": opened in 1922, the first concrete double-deck stadium in America and once the largest poured-concrete structure in the world, its south end left open in the signature U that gives it the name. It holds over 102,000, and at every home game the marching band spells out Script Ohio — a tradition since 1936 whose i has been dotted by honored guests including astronaut and Ohio son John Glenn.

This quiet Union County field sits in the middle of an unlikely automotive capital. In 1982 Honda built the first Japanese-owned car plant on American soil here at Marysville — the first US-made Accord, "USA 001," rolled off the line on November 1 that year — and the complex has since grown into Ohio's largest employer. Northwest of the plant, near East Liberty, lies the Transportation Research Center: a 4,500-acre proving ground born from Ohio State engineering research in the early 1970s, anchored by a 7.5-mile high-speed test oval that is a genuine landmark from the air — a vast banked ring scribed into the farmland.

Columbus is the state capital and Ohio's largest city, and from the John Glenn Columbus airport its center is a short hop southwest. The Ohio Statehouse, finished in 1861, is one of the purest Greek Revival capitols in the country — squared-off and severe, capped not by a soaring dome but by a low drum cupola, so it reads differently than most statehouses. Just south of downtown sits German Village, platted in 1814 and built up by German immigrants into one of the largest privately funded historic districts in the United States — all red brick and cobblestone. The Scioto Mile lines the riverfront, and a statue of John Glenn — Ohio's astronaut-senator, whose name is on the field you departed — stands inside the Statehouse.